Theta (19 page)

“
Come with me,” I
said.

He lifted his head and gazed at me. “I
cannot walk.”

“
We’ll travel ten times the
distance by night as we could walking by day.”

“
Won’t I slow your
progress?”

“
Come with me, Menelaus. An
Oracle, and a member of our Bloodline, are both in
danger.”

“
The Silent Queen,” he
said. “I’ve seen her on the television.”

“
You can help me break the
curse and free our family.”

This caught his attention, and he studied me
intently for a long minute. “I would like that, but I am not the
Spartan king I once was.”

“
I know what blood runs
through our veins. You are every bit the Spartan king you once
were, with the wisdom of a sage,” I replied. “One more journey.
It’s all I ask. This time, we won’t be cursed for bringing down the
walls of the world’s greatest city, and the beautiful woman within
those walls won’t end up in someone else’s arms.”

He laughed. “You make a convincing case.”
Shifting into a sitting position, he nodded slowly. “If you wish me
to come, we cannot leave before tonight. The man who brings me
bread will be by later today. I will send my boys with him.”

My belief Menelaus had not exhausted his
usefulness trumped my desire to leave immediately. Aside from the
opportunist in me that knew what Menelaus brought to the table, I
enjoyed his presence. He was the only other person like me in the
world, and that meant something to the same part of me that crossed
the ocean to find my name.

“
Will you pick the best of
the herbs from the garden? I will send them with the boys,”
Menelaus requested.

With a nod, I left the cottage on the
shallow cliffs and circled the cottage. The sea breeze ruffled my
hair and the herbs in the elevated garden beds. I plucked up a
basket and began to collect herbs as requested.

“
If you have any more
secrets, Artemis, I’d appreciate you telling me without sending me
so far away,” I said as I worked.

My sense of urgency was growing. Being half
beast gave me stamina, agility and strength far beyond that of a
normal human, but patience was a learned trait that took great
effort. The return trip would pass much faster, now that I had
experienced the journey here and knew how to travel
efficiently.

I’m coming,
Alessandra.
I thought.
And I’m pretty sure I’m bringing Apollo with me.

“
Do you want him muzzled?”
Herakles asked.

I glanced up from the report in my hands. I
could count on one hand the days I’d received good news since
leaving the city. Today was one of those rare days. Over the past
two weeks, my army had shifted from scraping by to being able to
store food in preparation for a long campaign. In a month, we’d
have the stockpile of food we needed to survive a winter at
war.

Today was a good day.

I nodded once.

Herakles smiled, as he did each time I
requested the presence of Kyros-Paeon but refused to allow the god
to speak. As little as I wanted to admit it, the physician to the
gods was one of the reasons my army had turned a corner. Illnesses
and injuries had disappeared. Everyone who should have been
actively engaged in daily activities, or preparing for our future,
was capable of performing his or her duties. We had reached a point
no army in history ever had: our staffing was at one hundred
percent.

Even so, I would never trust a parasite like
Paeon. He traveled with me whenever I left camp, not to help me if
injured, but to prevent him from sweet-talking any more guards into
allowing him extra privileges he didn’t deserve. People were
grateful to him, which I reluctantly understood. But they didn’t
know what I did about the gods. Keeping him at my side was my way
of protecting my people from their kind hearts.

I returned the lengthy report to the
low-ranking soldier standing patiently beside me. My armies were in
good shape, compared to where we’d been upon arriving here. It was
as much a testament to Kyros-Paeon as it was to Herakles, who
worked tirelessly to ensure the people were taken care of, while I
mapped out our strategy for the next six months.

Herakles led Kyros-Paeon into the motor
pool. I didn’t miss how others greeted the parasitic, with smiles
and handshakes and on occasion, hugs. While gagged, he responded
with eyes that glowed with happiness. He was comfortable here, and
he had managed to garner more respect – and sweets, which were rare
– in his short time here than I had since leaving the city.

Nothing he ever did,
however, would convince me he was genuinely
good.
I would never trust the god who
cured my people or any god who came after him. At their approach,
Paeon’s blue eyes turned brown as he let the human side of him
control his body. They had learned quickly I responded better to a
respectful human than an arrogant god.

Herakles climbed into the passenger side of
my command vehicle. I got in back, and Kyros-Paeon slid into the
seat beside me. It was just past dusk, and daylight had not yet
completely faded from the sky. Several rainy days had given way to
a warm, clear evening.

“
Ready?” Herakles asked,
meeting my gaze in the side-view window.

I nodded.

We left the compound, trailed by one vehicle
with three armed soldiers instead of my normal escort of half a
dozen. Tonight was special. We weren’t searching for more gods or
scouts. We were headed in a direction we never went before –
towards the wall.

We’re leaving your personal
guard. Are you going to kill me tonight?
Paeon asked into my head.

I make no guarantees for
your safety on any night,
I
replied.

His hands were free, and he reached up to
remove the muzzle. I didn’t care what he said around me, because
nothing would ever change my mind about the gods. I ordered him
gagged around others.

“
I can’t speak to you as he
does,” Kyros said.

I didn’t have to look at the man beside me
to identify it was the human side of him speaking. His voice was
always softer and a tad more respectful when Kyros was in charge of
his body.

“
If you plan on killing me
this night, may I have a last request?” Kyros asked.

I pursed my lips.
Unfortunately, your death is not the purpose of
our mission tonight,
I replied
archly.

“
Ah. Okay. We noticed you
brought the one driver who doesn’t like us, and none of the guards
who favor us, so we assumed the worst.”

I didn’t care for the reminder my own
soldiers were discreetly disobeying my orders. In the time he had
been with us, Kyros-Paeon had touched the lives of many people. Two
weeks was long enough for the remaining men and women at camp to
have heard how great Kyros-Paeon was. His reputation was
unvarnished, despite his status as one of the gods we were supposed
to be hunting.

“
Do you not wish to know my
last request?” Kyros pressed.

When the time comes, I will consider
granting you a last request.

“
He thought you might be
more open to discussing it with me.”

I do not care to hear it now.

“
Thank you for inviting us
again. We like coming with you. It’s fascinating to see what you
do.” Kyros sounded excited about the prospect of a ride along. His
optimism clashed with my realism every time we were around one
another. How ignorant did someone have to be, to believe any of us
were destined to live happily in a world like this?

I ignored him with great effort.

“
You seem so young to know
so much about war and … this.” He motioned to the world. “I had a
year to go before graduating college when the gods tried to murder
us all. I didn’t know half what you do about politics or survival.
You’re probably the smartest person I’ve ever met.”

What else I disliked about being around
Kyros: I sometimes had a hard time remembering he was probably
going to die by my hand in the near future. I didn’t always know
how to handle the duality of this man. He was human. Allegedly, the
god possessing his body meant him no real harm. I couldn’t forget
the fact that Paeon was inside the human, though. The god was
selfish enough to endanger the life of a human and to refuse to die
as he should have if his existence were truly threatened. There was
no honor in any creature that possessed another in order to
preserve itself.

But … Kyros was still a man, and I was sworn
to protect humans from the gods. On most days, I was too busy to
deal with this complication. Trapped in a vehicle with the two of
them, I was forced to face my conflicted feelings. Paeon was alive
because I was unwilling to murder the innocent human whose body he
had overtaken. If the god endangered Kyros, or displaced his soul,
I wouldn’t hesitate to kill him.

In the meantime, I was left
trying not to be curious about the life of someone who had been, by
his own accounts, so perfectly normal, he was fascinating to me. I
had never known anything about
normal.
Bred for one purpose – to
become Queen – I was born into opulence and privilege, wealth and
power. College was a foreign concept to me, as was the idea Kyros
had grown up with his sister and brother – now both deceased – in a
middle class household in southern Virginia. He played sports and
went to the mall to hang out with friends. At times, I wondered if
learning more about how normal people lived and how they thought
would make it easier for me to relate to my soldiers.

“
I’m talking too much
again, aren’t I?” Kyros asked and turned his gaze from me to the
scenery out his window.

People who spoke for reasons other than to
convey an important message also puzzled me. Handsome, athletic and
friendly, Kyros was also far more extroverted than those I was used
to dealing with.

Yes,
I replied.
When you’re a Queen, people
tend to say as little as possible to you.

“
Sounds lonely.”

I prefer it that way.

“
Oh.”

He said nothing else. I glanced at him. I
didn’t quite know what to do with him yet. His chatter gave me
insight into how normal people thought, even if his presence
usually irritated me.

Kyros appeared relaxed and interested in
watching the trees fly by us.

The vehicle reached the edge of the
territory I had claimed as mine. The driver turned off the lights
and maneuvered through a bumpy, muddy trail to an abandoned highway
that used to be Highway 267. The highway was smooth, and the driver
gunned the engine as soon as the vehicle behind us reached the
pavement.

We raced towards DC at a pace certain to
keep us ahead of any bandits or thieves lying in wait on this
stretch of highway. The world outside my compound was one of
general chaos, where food and life were the primary concerns of
every survivor. My enemies were the gods and the political elite in
DC. My people were under orders to avoid confrontations with local
militias or bandits as much as feasible.

My hair was tied in a tight bun on top of my
head to keep it in place amidst the warm breeze battering us
through the open windows of the Jeep. Excitement energized me and
lifted the fatigue I had accepted as normal. The wall around DC
grew closer as we raced towards it.

“
I’ve never been to DC,”
Kyros said. “Even before the gods attacked us and the wall went up.
Did you like it there?”

I raised an eyebrow.
Like? It was my duty to be there.

“
Duty aside. You have
to
like
things
sometimes, don’t you?”

How I feel about something doesn’t matter.
My duties do.

“
On second thought, you’re
the smartest person I’ve ever met, except when you’re not,” he
said. “Even Paeon pities you, and he barely has an empathy
button.”

Pity?
Startled, I turned my head to see him.
I’m a Queen. What is there to pity?

“
For one, you don’t get to
do what you want with your life. That sounds miserable to me, even
if you are the richest person on the planet.”

I leveled a cold look on
him before returning my focus outside the truck. I
had
been the richest
person on the planet, before I used ten thousand years of my
family’s fortune to build an army and city beneath the streets of
DC. I did exactly what I wanted with my life and my wealth. I had
created the only force in history capable of challenging the gods
and political elite on behalf of humanity. How could anyone
pity
me for
that?

“
I can kind of hear most of
what you’re thinking, whenever I’m within about two meters of you,”
Kyros said apologetically and cleared his throat. “Paeon didn’t
want to tell you, but it doesn’t seem right for you not to know. He
said he chose me partially because I have natural telepathic
ability that’s much stronger than most people he’s met, aside from
High Priests. If you have some way of thinking silently, you might
want to try it.”

I decided when the time came, I was
personally going to be the one to kill him.

Kyros shifted beside me, aware of this
thought, too. I didn’t care. He needed to understand his position
here and mine.